by S L Farrell
“. . . and anyway, those gardai are staying in the village today. They’ve been traveling down the Coast Road in search of the Geraghty boy—Ennis, they said his name was . . .” the woman was saying. The blue ghosts merged into reality again with Ennis’ decision, fading even as he watched. The woman stroked the cloth again. “The Riocha can afford to overpay for such things. For those like me, it’s too dear.”
The course was set. All he had to do was follow the pattern. He reached up to tug at the woman’s sleeve. “My mam will sell it to you for but a single mórceint, Iníon, because you love the Banrion Ard as we do,” he said, still cradled in Unnisha’s arm and knowing that after a few more minutes of haggling with Unnisha, the woman would buy the bolt for a silver half-mórceint and four coppers. She would leave pleased with her “bargain” and Unnisha would pocket the coins, which were three times what she’d paid for the cloth in the first place.
Later that evening, when the sun was just leaving the sky, the two gardai the woman had mentioned would stroll into the Taisteal encampment.
That’s what the blue ghosts had shown him, and Ennis waited for them.
They walked in their own clear space in the now crowded area between the wagons. They either didn’t notice or didn’t care that the villagers would lower their eyes and purse their mouths as they approached, and cast suspicious glances at their backs once they passed. Ennis thought he even recognized one of the two—a tall and thin man with curly red hair that verged on orange and a mouth that was set crooked on his sallow face—a keep garda that he’d glimpsed before, though he didn’t know the man’s name. The other, shorter and with hair the color of dry earth and eyes of the same bland color, was a stranger. They strolled slowly through the camp, glancing occasionally at the wares the Taisteal had out for sale or barter, but looking more closely at the people around them. They wore swords, dangling from wide leather belts under clóca dyed the dark gray of Dún Laoghaire, the color that Ennis’ own small clóca had once been, and their chests were covered in leather vests that jingled with rings of steel.
Ennis had no experience of war, but he remembered his da play-fencing with him with wooden swords just before he left for Céile Mhór. “Why don’t you wear your real sword, Da?” he’d asked afterward as they left the room. His da wore only his léine and clóca and the golden torc that matched the one around his mam’s neck. Even Blaze was hidden, though Ennis already knew that no one who had a cloch could bear to be without it, and that Blaze was also around Owaine’s neck even if he kept it from casual sight.
His da had shrugged at the question. “A true soldier carries his weapons when he expects he might need them or when it’s required of him,” he’d answered. “Only then.” He’d grinned then. “Besides,” he added, snatching Ennis up in his strong arms and clasping the boy to him, “how can I hug my son if I have a big, nasty sword in the way?”
They’d laughed, the two of them, and the sound had seemed to reverberate through the whole keep.
Ennis watched the two gardai make their way toward Unnisha’s wagon, knowing that they, too, were part of the new pattern and all he had to do was follow it.
Unnisha saw the gardai at the same time; Ennis felt her arm go around his shoulders as she drew him close. “Be careful with them,” she whispered as they strode near, the crowd parting and then closing in behind them once more as they passed. Ennis saw them looking at him appraisingly, and the red-haired garda nodded to his companion. Unnisha smiled as they changed direction and strolled over toward them. “Good evening,” she said to them, smiling, but Ennis could hear the slight tremor in her voice. “Can I interest you in some cloth? Something pretty to take back to your wives, perhaps? To the gardai, we always give our very best prices.”
The short one sniffed at that. “Your very highest prices, most likely,” he said. He was looking at neither the cloth nor Unnisha, but Ennis. Ennis ducked his head but he could feel their stares. “And no doubt you’ve also heard by now that the Banrion Ard was murdered by her Taisteal servant woman.”
“No!” said Unnisha in feigned horror. “We knew about the assassination, but not that any Taisteal had been involved. Surely that’s a mistake—we Taisteal are a peaceful folk.”
“The mistake was for the Banrion to trust a Taisteal,” the garda answered. “The woman’s name was Isibéal—did you know her?”
Unnisha shook her head thoughtfully. “No . . . no. I never knew a Taisteal woman by that name. What was her clan?”
“She gave her family name as Gastiela.”
“Ah. We’re Clan Kahlnik. There are other clans traveling this land, but . . .” Unnisha raised a shoulder. “We might never see them their whole time here. The Taisteal are always traveling. Always moving. We’ve been in the south of your land for the last year; we’re just now coming north.”
The tall, orange-haired garda had been staring at Ennis through the exchange. “What’s your name, boy?” he asked, abruptly.
“Fiodóir,” Ennis answered, giving the answer the pattern demanded. He took the step to the left away from Unnisha, as he’d seen the blue ghost do. Her arm left him reluctantly. “I’m Unnisha’s son. We sell cloth. I could show you some of it, if you’d like.”
“Aye.” The confirmation sounded more like a question. “What about you, do you know this Isibéal?”
He blinked, his mouth open for a distinct second of hesitation. “No,” he said, shaking his head vigorously. “I don’t.”
The orange-haired garda cocked his head to one side, as if trying to straighten out his mouth. His hand drifted to the hilt of his sword. “Your accent, Fiodóir; to my ear it’s different than your mam’s.”
Ennis heard the intake of Unnisha’s breath. He pursed his lips, shaking his head. “I don’t know what you mean . . .” At the same time, he stepped directly into the last dying light of the sun, letting the light strike him full in the face. He knew what the gardai saw: the sun coaxing red highlights from his dyed hair. He scurried back to Unnisha, half-hiding himself behind her skirt and back. The orange-hair garda was smiling grimly. He glanced at his companion and nodded his head toward one of the other wagons. “We ought to talk with the Clannhra,” he said. The two of them started to walk away, then the orange-hair stopped as if he’d forgotten something.
“Oh. Ennis, there was one more thing I wanted to ask you.”
“What?” Ennis asked innocently, as the pattern demanded: even as he felt Unnisha’s hand tighten on his shoulder in alarm, even as she started to interrupt and stop him from answering.
The gardai’s swords flew from their sheaths. Ennis heard the alarm of the crowds, heard Unnisha’s shrill, “No!” He felt the hand of the shorter garda on his arm as the soldier pulled him away from Unnisha, as the orange-haired one held Unnisha back with the point of his sword to her neck. “No! He’s my son! My son!”
The other Taisteal came running, the men grim-faced. The Dúnwick residents moved back uneasily as the Taisteal gathered while Clannhra Ata pushed toward the front. “Back off!” the orange-haired garda said. “This is the Ard’s business. Back off now!” The crowd obeyed; some scowling, but most simply openly curious.
“What is the matter here?” Clannhra Ata said, sounding both aggrieved and puzzled. “We’ve done nothing.”
The orange-hair sniffed, still holding Unnisha against the side of the wagon with his sword. She was sobbing quietly, the tears tracking down her face, her gaze on Ennis. Ennis stopped struggling in the shorter garda’s grip. “You’re the Clannhra here?”
“Aye.”
“Then you’ll be coming with us as well.”
Clannhra Ata held her arms wide as if to show that she had no weapons. “We’ve done nothing,” she repeated. “That boy is Unnisha’s son Fiodóir. Tell them, Fiodóir. Tell these men your name.”
“My name . . .” Ennis paused. The blue ghosts danced the outline of his future life around him.
They were all looking at him. He heard Unnisha’s sob.
He took a breath, drawing himself up and straightening his shoulders as he’d seen Kayne or his da do when they stood in front of the people they commanded. He lifted his chin, as if in defiance.
“My name is Ennis Geraghty,” he said, “and my mam was the Banrion Ard who was also called the Healer Ard.” He pulled Treoraí’s Heart from under his léine. “And this was once my mam’s.”
He heard Unnisha’s despairing wail. He saw the look of hatred and betrayal on the Clannhra’s face. Inside the Heart, Isibéal chortled.
He would have smiled, but the pattern would not allow it.
24
The Dragon of Thall Coill
AT SOME POINT, Sevei stopped being afraid.
The dragon lifted her high among shredded ivory clouds and pale moonlight, but the claws that held her only clutched her tightly without crushing her. Sevei blinked into the lash of the wind, hearing the low, steady thrump of huge leathery wings above her and smelling the sulfurous stench of the creature. She looked down as Kekeri rose and banked in updrafts she could not sense, glimpsing far below the rolling wave tops of the sea, the white foam of the surf crashing into Parlan’s island, and the humps of tiny specks of land farther out in the distance. The sight made Sevei wrap her arms around the scaled leg of the creature in fright, knowing that if it opened its claws now, she would plummet to her death.
She knew then that her fate was no longer in her own hands.
They seemed to be moving northward, following the long line of the Stepping Stones toward Inish Thuaidh. After a time, Sevei called out to Kekeri, but the wind caught her voice and made it seem like no more than a whisper against the rush of air in her face. The dragon didn’t answer, either not hearing her, not understanding her now that they were no longer linked with Dragoncaller’s energy, or simply not caring to reply. It seemed to be laboring with her weight, occasionally dipping so close to the water that it seemed that she could almost feel the salt spray, and then rising again with great, energetic flaps of its wings. Perhaps that was the way dragons always flew, though—there was no way for her to know.
They traveled on for what would have been stripe after stripe of a clock-candle. They passed an island, then another far larger one drifted by to the right, then another off to the left. For a time, there was only open sea, but as the moon lowered itself in the sky she glimpsed another headland moving toward them slowly, and they passed along a seemingly endless coastline as she watched below the jagged line of white foam: the sea flailing against stubborn rocks.
Then, for a time, she remembered nothing. She slept in Kekeri’s grasp, a sleep that was punctuated by dreams of war and strife, of Saimhóir flying through blue water, of blood and murder haunted by the ghosts of her mam and great-mam.
The warm touch of the sun on her face woke her.
They were over water still, but rapidly approaching a high sea cliff beyond which she could see the green of dense treetops waving in the wind. The dragon was descending; she could hear its decidedly labored breath, huff ing loudly with each stroke of the wings. The land approached, far too rapidly for Sevei’s comfort, and she started to cry out in alarm as the cliffs rushed threateningly toward her. At the last moment, another beat of the dragon’s wings took them just above the lip of the jagged rocks; the broken edges of stone flashed past no more than an arm’s length from her dangling feet, so near that she drew up her legs afraid that they’d strike the rocks. They were passing over a high glade in front of the forest, the ground rushing by in a blur of green. Wings cupped air, hard: the dragon stopped, hovering for a moment, and then Kekeri’s talons were no longer holding her. Sevei fell onto the soft ground, the breath going out of her as the dragon half-rolled to an awkward stop not far from her. It wriggled, squirming on the joints of its batlike wings like a man moving on his elbows. It turned to face her, and its breath smelled of soot, sulfur, and rotting meat, and the double rows of scything teeth glittered in the dawn. Sevei shivered in the cold, but she faced it defiantly.
“You brought me all the way here to eat me? You could have done that long ago.”
A panting cough that might have been amusement erupted as it lifted its head above her. “You’d be nothing more than an unsatisfactory and dry snack. After this exertion, some farmer will find all his sheep gone tomorrow.” The words rumbled around her in the thundering hisses of dragon language; in her head, Kekeri’s voice spoke in Sevei’s own language through the dregs of mage-lights left in Dragoncaller, in tones that were low and weary.
“Where am I? Why did you bring me here?”
“Questions. With you soft-flesh creatures, it’s always questions. You should learn to accept your fates. You should learn patience, as we have. Perhaps it’s because your lives are so short and pointless . . .”
“Shut up and answer, then.”
The dragon hissed gray-black smoke from its nostrils. A stench like old eggs enveloped her. “I could have eaten you. Perhaps I should have.”
“You didn’t.”
“I may still rectify the mistake.”
“I certainly couldn’t stop you if you wanted to. So either do it or answer.” She fingered Dragoncaller, hoping that somehow, miraculously, the stone still had enough power in it so that she could control the dragon, but there were only wisps of mage-energy there. Kekeri saw the motion and snorted.
“You can command me for a few breaths with that, but a bound being resents enslavement and will turn on its captor when released. A slave will do what it’s told; a friend will do what’s needed.” When Sevei didn’t answer, the dragon gave another smoke-laden sniff of annoyance. “You’re on Krahl-Krok-Gral, the land you soft-flesh folk call Inish Thuaidh, and the forest before you is the Old Woods of the north peninsula.”
“Thall Coill? This is Thall Coill?”
“That may be what you call this place. It’s not our name for it nor the name the first soft-flesh people here gave it.”
“Why am I here?”
“Because this is where I was asked to bring you. By a friend.”
“A friend? Who is your friend?”
The great scaled head lowered until the huge reptilian eyes were level with her own. “More questions? No ‘thank you’ for killing those who would have killed you or for carrying you safely all the way here?”
“I didn’t ask for you to kill the gardai, who were at least my people. And I didn’t ask to come here either—who told you to bring me?”
“It was Bhralhg who wanted you here, of the waterborne Aware.”
“Bhralhg?” Sevei looked around, expecting to see the Saimhóir standing there near the cliff edge. “Is he here, then?”
“Another question. Is there no end to them?” The dragon stirred, pushing itself up on its rear legs. “I’m hungry and exhausted, and it’s not safe for even Earc Tine to hunt near the Old Woods. I’ve done what I was asked to do, and your questions weary me.” The dragon’s wings flapped once and at the same time Kekeri pushed itself into the air with its enormous leg muscles. It hung above her for an instant, like a dark-scaled cloud.
“Wait! I don’t know where I am or what to do.”
“That’s of no importance to me, and your cloch has no power to hold me,” Kekeri answered. Its wings flapped twice more as the massive body rose. “Farewell,” it said, and let itself fall over the edge of the cliff, its red tail slithering along the ground behind it, tearing at the grass. She heard the sails of its wings take the air, and a few moments later it reappeared, already well out over the water and flapping its wings energetically as it rose higher in morning sky. It wheeled around, flashing past her a hundred strides above and turning south, toward the unseen townland of An Ceann Ramhar and—Sevei assumed—its pastures dotted with sheep.
She watched until the dragon appeared to be no larger than a sparrow; a few breaths later, it vanished above the mountains.
For the first time, she looked around carefully. The closest of the trees were four or five strides away from the cliffs: huge and an
cient, gnarled oaks looking like stooped-over old men with gray beards of moss and old bird’s nests hanging from their limbs The trees quickly moved closer together until there was only a green-black darkness under their canopy, punctuated by infrequent shafts of yellow sun. The forest seemed to exhale a breath of earthy compost, and she could feel eyes watching her. At first, after the rumbling voice of the dragon, she thought the place was preternaturally quiet, but now she could hear that the forest was anything but silent: the groan of branches rubbing and cracking; the calls of songbirds; the croaking of argumentative crows; the calls of animals she could not identify and—once—the shivering, voicelike howl of a dire wolf. The wind howled in from off the Westering Sea, driving the waves that crashed in an endless susurration on the rock below the cliff.
Nowhere, though, was there any sign of her own kind. This was desolation.
Sevei sat, abruptly, on a nearby boulder. Parlan . . . She wondered what had happened to him. She wondered if she’d ever know.
Hunger gnawed at her belly, and her arms were goose bumped as she rubbed at them. She’d been taught the slow magic spell for fire-making during her time with the Order, but there was no dead wood here, and she’d heard enough tales of the old forest to be hesitant to cut greenwood from any of the trees. She remembered being in Doire Coill with her parents and Ennis and meeting the Protector Keira there before she’d taken ship for Inishfeirm—that seemed a lifetime ago. Other tales of the Bunús Muintir’s oak forests came to her as well, tales she’d learned from Inishfeirm or from Gram and Mam and Da, and thinking of them brought back the grief and loss again. All of them gone, all my family, and Dillon . . . Máister Kirwan . . .
She wondered whether she might be better off going down to the sea and changing—at least then she would be warm, and she could chase the sweetfish for food. And if Bhralhg had, indeed, caused her to be brought here, maybe . . .
The feeling of being watched was stronger now than before. She lifted her head, peering around. Shadows stirred under the trees and resolved into a man’s form. Sevei rose. “I see you there,” she called out, ready to run for the sea at need. “Who are you?”
